Islamic Political Activism as a Means of Women's Empowerment? The Case of the Female Islamic Action Front Activists

Abstract

AbstractThis paper examines the effect that Islamic political activism has on the personal lives of women who are members of the Islamic Action Front. The paper studies how female members are able to better their daily lives through their Islamic party activism. To give the reader a better understanding of who the women are who are examined in this paper, the paper begins with a brief overview of the IAF and its women's section. Then the paper moves to examining how political Islam alters the lives of female partisans. I discuss one of the factors responsible for the perceived change in the lives of female activists, namely: Islamic knowledge. The paper will examine how Islamic knowledge has affected the lives of the female Islamists in question. I argue that the Islamic knowledge gained impacts the lives of female activists on three levels: the personal, the familial, and the social.